Gordon’s win and tonic

NOBODY could accuse Gordon Elliot of lacking ambition.

His first runner as a trainer was at the Cheltenham Festival five years ago when he sent Brandon Mountain to take his chance in the Fred Winter Juvenile Novices’ Hurdle. Ridden by Denis O’Regan, the horse was pulled up, but Elliot had laid down a marker. Rather than having his first ever runner take on a nondescript race in Bellewstown, he went straight to the biggest meeting in these islands.

Just over a year later — and still having had no winners in his native land, although he had plundered some big prizes in the UK — he led Silver Birch into the winner’s enclosure at the Aintree Grand National after pulling off a shock 33/1 win with a horse that had been rejected because of ongoing leg problems by the mighty Paul Nicholls yard.